A geographic information system (GIS), or geographical information system, is any system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that are linked to location. In the simplest terms, GIS is the merging of cartography, statistical analysis, and database technology. GIS systems are used in cartography, remote sensing, land surveying, utility management, natural resource management, photogrammetry, geography, urban planning, emergency management, navigation, and localized search engines. As GIS is a system, it establishes boundaries that may be jurisdictional, purpose oriented, or application oriented for which a specific GIS is developed. Hence, a GIS developed for an application, jurisdiction, enterprise, or purpose may not be necessarily interoperable or compatible with a GIS that has been developed for some other application, jurisdiction, enterprise, or purpose. Also, GIS includes a spatial (or geospatial) data infrastructure (SDI), which is a concept that has no such restrictive boundaries. Therefore, in a general sense, the term describes any information system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information. In a more generic sense, GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations.
Geospatial is a term widely used to describe the combination of spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets. The term is often used in conjunction with geographic information systems (GIS) and geomatics. Many geographic information system (GIS) products apply geospatial analysis.
Geographical information systems can be further exploited in non-intuitive ways to assist various enterprises, such as businesses.